Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

This week was full of more wood for the site.  Basically, about 1 and 1/4 time the previous order with almost all of it 1x8 boards meaning more face to be planed down.  I have so many boards I am having storage problems until I get them all ready.  So I had to use two of my 2x6 boards to make some sawhorses to store some of the wood on. A lot of warp in this board.  This is fairly common in the wood here. Another problem we have this time around is that the boards that will be used to face the climbing wall have to be trimmed down in size.  In the USA when you buy a 1-inch thick board it is actually 3/4" thick.  Here that board is 1 1/4" thick.  Not a problem except the bolts for the climbing handles are made for a board that is less than 1" thick.  So we have to trim those boards down almost 3/8". What does this mean?  I ran out of diesel fuel before I finished planing the wood this week.  So I started digging out the are...

Most regular readers of my blog know I am a fan of "Tiny House Nation" on the FYI Network.  What you may not know is I love a lot of the shows that do a lot of creative things on houses and yards and buildings in general.  Things like "Home Town", "Fixer Upper", "Rehab Addict"  any of the flipper or crasher programs on DIY and HGTV network.  It started a long time ago with "This Old House" on PBS.  I liked shows that show more of the work and what it takes to make something.  I especially like a show that is more realistic in their time frames.  I hate it when a show pours concrete and then pretends to build on it the next day.  If they actually do that, I don't care what special additives they use they are causing problems down the road if not sooner.  Concrete cures over time.  If you properly cure concrete for 7 days it will be 50% stronger than if you don't.  AS important is the fact that the concrete will release moisture f...

Today's Conversation with Barnabas is a big one.  Today we welcome Elfu Moja to the Prayer/Mission Bear Family.  Elfu Moja means one thousand in Kiswahili and he is the 1000th bear made by one of the most caring, sweetest individuals you will ever meet. So today we are interviewing Lynda S. who makes 99.95% of all the bears we will be talking about.  This one will be more interview style since it was done via email.  I am also going to try and include some of my personal memories as one of the bears she made along with pictures. Barnabas (B):  When did you start making the prayer/mission bears? Lynda (L):  It all started in 2010 when someone asked the prayer shawl ministry group if they did anything special for kids who were in the hospital.  The next meeting they brought a bear they had made.   B:  Did you have a pattern to get you started? L:  Well I first took the pattern used to make that first bear but it ...

Sometimes our path is clear sometimes not So my title this blog is an obvious adaptation of Shakespeare's to be or not to be from Hamlet.  Though that is most likely as far as that connection will go.  In fact this blog is more about a Theological question I often struggle with.  All of it centers around if I am supposed to be here or continue to be here? My regular readers will remember I am just getting back to Tanzania while struggling through work permit/residence permit issues.  The new regulations passed by the new Tanzanian President in 2016 require anyone getting a residence permit to get a work permit.  Even if you are not doing work and are not taking away the job of a Tanzanian because in my case I actually think I add jobs using US dollars I raise in the states to purchase food, hotel rooms, internet service and materials for home in the village as well as getting all the money the ministry sends over for construction, salaries, medicines, p...